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Up Your Game with Skills-based Volunteering
Every nonprofit has that project which is both vital to the organization but beyond their reach. It might be a new accounting system, a website upgrade, a fundraising strategy, or a complete strategic plan. That project is always on the to-do list but …
Creating a More Robust Volunteer Development Program During the Covid-19 Crisis
What does your volunteer engagement program look like right now? Two case studies—League of Women Voters of Oakland and Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center of Nassau County—explored in this article show us that a successful volunteer program blen …
Ask Rita: Can Our Paid Employees Also Do Volunteer Work for Us?
Dear Rita: We operate a nonprofit housing clinic for homeless persons. The pandemic, along with the holidays, has inspired some of our employees to inquire about doing extra work for us as volunteers. We don’t normally use volunteers. However, we appre …
You Can’t Fire Me, I’m a Volunteer!
If you’ve worked in volunteer management for any length of time, you’ve probably heard some version of this fear-inducing refrain. Your first encounter with it may be as a direct threat, a mild joke, or overheard when the volunteer speaking doesn’t kno …
Volunteer Management: How to Get it Right
How essential are volunteers to achieving your nonprofit’s mission? In our recent study, we learned that the lack of understanding about the essential nature of volunteers and the staff who lead them (called Volunteer Engagement Professionals–VEPs) un …
Ask Rita: Do Nonprofits Need Insurance for Volunteers?
Dear Rita: I recently read an article that said it was a good idea to have insurance for volunteers. I thought volunteers had immunity in both federal and state laws. Should I be doing something to protect my nonprofit? Signed, Curious in California …
All Hands on Board: The Board of Directors in All-Volunteer Organizations
This booklet was originally published by the National Center for Nonprofit Boards and the Support Center for Nonprofit Management, which are now respectively known as BoardSource and CompassPoint Nonprofit Services. The hardcopy is now out of print. …
When Kids Volunteer: Liability Basics
Whether kids sell cookies or help clean up a park, they are welcome volunteers. Just be sure you know the basics of how to protect them and your organization when it comes to liabilities (at the end of this article is a link to a sample waiver): …
Court-Ordered Community Service: Volunteers or Prison Labor?
Each year, hundreds of thousands of court-ordered community service workers are placed in nonprofits to fulfill their sentences. Although the image is typically one of a teenager sentenced to picking up litter, court-ordered volunteers perform a …
Volunteerism Public Policies Can Hurt Nonprofits
Amidst the predictable praise for volunteerism and the Serve America Act, we at Blue Avocado detect the mooing of a sacred cow. Cow hunter and policy analyst Rick Cohen lets us know the four things we should be worried about with public pol …
